First posts, horrible photos, I know

[talz13]

I was out trying to shoot some birds on the beach today. The sky was pretty overcast and all the birds were out on an icy pier, so I couldn't get very close. I was using my new tripod to take these, but didn't think about hanging my bag off of it to help stabilize it during the strong wind. Any suggestions for taking better pics and pp'ing the ones that I have taken, please let me know!

Gear:
Canon XSi
canon 55-250 4-5.6 IS
055XPROB 488rc2

The 'full' links are 1280x853 resized, 100% is 800x600 crop, otherwise no PP.

Birds on pier - full:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3624/3351916103_d4882800b9_o.jpg
100%:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3598/3351915855_a22b2b2f38_o.jpg

Ice on a branch hanging off the pier - full:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3446/3352742508_ba69dd5d8a_o.jpg
100%:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3660/3352742172_0df0ae7383_o.jpg

[USER876]

1st photo, your shutter is fast.......I think it may be depth of field showing here. Perhaps try bumping iso to 400 and increasing to F11+

[luvsadog2]

Maybe not the best composition, but its an interesting combination: the frozen water, the iciclesd, the gulls and the ducks -- where was this taken? I don't think I've ever seen Mallards and gulls hanging out in the same place like that!

[talz13]

Maybe not the best composition, but its an interesting combination: the frozen water, the iciclesd, the gulls and the ducks -- where was this taken? I don't think I've ever seen Mallards and gulls hanging out in the same place like that!

These were taken in good ol' Bay Village, OH. Lake Erie is still pretty freezing right now.

[luvsadog2]

Here's some Southern California ducks for you .. guess they like it warm or cold, ha.

[troyer16]

They are not horrible by any means. Here is some helpful criticism.

The last photo is the best/most interesting compostional wise but it is out of focus. Could be from camera shake, you said it was windy?
As far as the first photo goes:
Its a pretty good shot, especially with no PP. What i recommend doing is cropping off some of the top; you have a lot of dead space there that is detracting from the focus of the image- the ducks. You did a good job using the walk way to lead your eye to the ducks and i think it could be a more powerful image by cropping off some of the water and all of the sky. Maybe even crop from the sides a tiny bit too. Hope this helps

[talz13]

Ok, I made a cropped version of that first image, and when I was copying the exif data over, I noticed something. I was complaining that I couldn't get close enough to these birds without scaring them off, but when I turned around to take a picture of a building at the top of the beach cliff I zoomed out to 135mm and never zoomed back in to 250mm! Max zoom all the time probably isn't very creative, but at least I would have been able to get some more detail on the birds.

And here I was, wondering why the birds weren't looking any bigger even though I moved myself and my gear about halfway down the pier!

The only PP on these is an unsharp mask with default settings in the gimp. I thought it made the ducks just 'pop' a little more, but on second glance makes the landscape kind of harsh. Any suggestions on that? Can you make like a layer mask to unsharp mask on and just paint out the birds for it so only they get sharpened?

Here's the cropped version:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3574/3353080219_feb6fe2fab_b.jpg
100% crop:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/3353080477_6ccefac4ea_o.jpg

Oh, andon an unrelated note, a little HDR I was playing with last night. I was trying out Qtpfsgui and getting really confused, but I thought this one came out okay:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1221/3353223256_f4855ce5be_o.jpg

[Flo]

Wowza.that duck shot last posted is HUGE!!!! Have to scroll to see what you wrote.might want to resize that one.

[talz13]

Wowza.that duck shot last posted is HUGE!!!! Have to scroll to see what you wrote.might want to resize that one.

OHHHHHH yeah.... I forgot that I turned off images and signatures before, so all I was seeing was links! I'll fix that right up!

[Flo]

Thanks;)